UNANSWERED
IT was a sweltering night, the booze was flowing and cakes laced with hash were eaten like they were going out of fashion.
Guests launched into the pool and boisterous play fights broke out.
Centre stage was Brian Jones, who founded the Rolling Stones and launched them on to the world stage.
Three weeks earlier he had been sacked from the band, which would go on to sell 240 million records as one of the richest groups of all time.
Jones was looked after financially and so the rock and roll parties continued. But the intoxicating allure of those reckless summer nights proved a lethal mix.
At 9pm on July 2, 1969 a single piercing scream rang out as Jones was discovered at the bottom of the pool. He was just 27.
An inquest ruled his death was misadventure. But conspiracy theories have suggested Jones was murdered.
COMPLICIT
And now, from beyond the grave, a previously unseen interview reignites suspicions that Jones was murdered and that police at the highest level were complicit in a cover-up.
The death has been pored over relentlessly down the years. There have been hundreds of hours of TV reports and documentaries and thousands of words written by investigators and journalists seeking the truth.
One motive, it is said, was a financial dispute between Jones and disgruntled builder Frank Thorogood, a guest that night at Cotchford Farm, Sussex.
An inquest found Jones died from “drowning while under the influence of drink and drugs”.
In footage obtained by the Sunday Mirror, Jones’ manager Tom Keylock reveals how the rocker and his pals were “out of their minds” after getting stoned on hash cakes.
Keylock – who is accused by investigative reporter Terry Rawlings of covering up the murder – branded Jones a “pain in the a**e”.
The manager, now dead, was interviewed in 2009 by Rawlings, who has spent 30 years searching for the truth.
The revelations will appear in a Netflix documentary based on Rawlings’ book Who Killed Christopher Robin? – a nod to the farm’s setting for the Winnie the Pooh books.
In his interview, Keylock finally admitted he was at Cotchford Farm, formerly owned by Pooh author A. A. Milne.
Keylock, who spent years denying he was there, said in the interview: “Brian’s always been a pain in the a**e and he’s still a pain in the a**e. I’m sick and tired of all these soppy stories going out.
“Believe me, this is the last interview I will ever do on Brian Jones. Forty years on I’m still listening to stories. I’m getting sick of it. The bulls*** they come out with is unbelievable.”
According to the official version of events, there were just three guests at
The local cops wanted to press charges but Scotland Yard officer pulled rank
TOM KEYLOCK GUEST AT ROCK STAR’S FATAL POOL PARTY
Cotchford that night: Brian’s builder Thorogood, now deceased, the rocker’s girlfriend Anna Wohlin, and nurse Janet Lawson – Keylock’s girlfriend.
They gave police statements saying Jones had been drinking and Lawson said he had been taking sleeping tablets too. All three said they had left the pool and gone to separate parts of the house minutes before Jones drowned alone.
Police arrived at 12.15am. Thorogood was taken to hospital with an injured wrist. However, the jigsaw of evidence gathered by Rawlings and others challenges the official version of what